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Archive for 2012

Traditionally, Egypt was known as the gift of the Nile, ever since Herodotus simply stated that “without the Nile, there is no Egypt, because where the Nile overflows its banks, the land is green, and where the water’s influence stops, the desert begins. Egypt is the Gift of the Nile, the only place in the world where a river dares to cut across a thousand miles of desert to reach the sea, creating a civilization along its course”.

We have chosen Water as a symbolic guide for the whole project, aiming to evoke the deepest roots of Egyptian culture and imagine the building itself as an element generated by the river’s life.

Laval University’s science building, the Pavillon Alexandre-Vachon, was inaugurated in 1962. After fifty years of use without any significant work done to it, the 45,000 m2 building was in need of a major facelift and complete overhaul. Designed by architect Lucien Mainguy, an important figure in Quebec’s modernist movement, the pavilion is protected by the CAMEO, a university committee that among other things is mandated to protect and maintain Laval University’s architectural heritage. A $90 million phased renovation project was put forward by the university, starting with an initial $18 million investment.

As one of the tallest buildings in Stockholm, Victoria Tower stands out among its neighbors and acts as an icon of the surround area. Situated between Stockholm proper and the city airport, the tower serves a nearby office park with conference and office facilities, as well as providing a 229 room hotel. The tessellated façade of the building is clad entirely in colored glass, though in actuality two-thirds of the walls are fully insulated. This allows the tower to appear as a colorful prism in its geometry and materiality while meeting the needs for energy conservation. The tower has a parallelogram-shaped plan for floors 2–21, which is comprised of the hotel rooms, while the upper floors are rectangular, delineating the office spaces and a roof bar. This causes the top floors to cantilever slightly above the underlying shaft, emphasizing its geometry.

What is a bridge in the collective imagination? How to obtain livable spaces from a passing-by architecture? How to push the design to its boundaries and at the same time satisfy the requests for traffic flows, wheelchair access, integration in the urban context, sustainability looking, clarity and comprehensibility of the program?

Darling Quarter is a true integration of urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture toward the creation of a public place within the City. We have sought to enhance the joy and beauty of Darling Harbour, one of the most popular public places in Australia, and to do so in a way that imbues it with a sense of quality and permanence.

Headed by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah, the aim of the Msheireb project is to create a modern Qatari homeland that is rooted in traditions and to renew a piece of city where global cultures meet but not melt. The scope of the project is to rejuvenate a 31 hectare site within the heart of the city.

Architecture is a means to bring people to the natural environment. The Museum features a large plaza that characterizes the building. The development of this area was vital to connecting the building to the environment.

It arose from the idea to strengthen the relationship between the town and the natural landscape that exists around the museum. The plaza gives a public space to the town, it is a place where people can eat and enjoy the landscape which is particularly striking for the site lies next to a dry river bed known in as the “Bar- ranco del Infierno”.

Our design inspiration comes from Herman Miller’s core products; Work Chairs. Herman Miller’s extensive range of work chairs produced over the years embodies their philosophy, culture and aspirations; a desire to constantly innovate, integrate technology with design and produce high quality, purposeful, human-centred products.

This project was inspired by the paradoxical idea of improving the environment through the presence of large-scale architecture. The Project is an office building for Sony’s R&D department, which takes the form of a thin vertical plate to ensure good views. More importantly, the form minimizes the heat island effect by positioning its narrow sides against prevailing winds, thus allowing the breeze to flow in from Tokyo Bay without hindrance. The building was then conceived as a massive cooling devise that performs in much the same way as a natural forest.

Martin Road No. 38 is a residential and commercial development located in a former warehouse area near to the Singapore River, and close to the Singapore CBD. The area lies within a planning zone in the city where the planning authorities have encouraged the conversion of building use from commercial to residential, and in this project, 80% of the permitted area was able to become residential apartments, while the remaining is designed as a cafe and restaurant.